


Like Fire, You Faded

by Carissarae1



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Happy Ending, I promise its okay, alright so I edited this and now its different from what it was before, but okay the break up is between a minor character and another character right at the beginning, idk im not good at taging things, larry stylinson - Freeform, um
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 13:44:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4524249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carissarae1/pseuds/Carissarae1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis's been fighting a losing battle within himself, and has been writing everything down in his journal. He's ready to give up right as he meets a curly haired boy and decides maybe he can try a little longer..</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Fire, You Faded

Day 1

Falling wasn’t the hard part, it was the letting go that was. Falling was easy. All I had to do was see you and every time I fell a little more. Sometimes it was just hearing you talk. Letting go, though? That was hard. I couldn’t see you because even though I didn’t want to, I kept falling, and I couldn’t not see you because I felt like I was going blind to everything worth seeing. I tried to just forget, but every time I worked up enough courage to let something be forgotten, five more memories would surface and it was exhausting. After that I just stopped trying because what else was I supposed to do? Every part of me wanted to go back in time and make it so I never became a part of your life, or let you in mine, because that part of me makes me believe that not ever knowing you would make everything easier. Except, then I know I’m wrong because I wouldn’t have all these memories that ironically I’m trying to forget, but are painted into my mind with the most permanent paint you could think of. There’s still so much of me that wishes everything could just go back to where we started, how everything was back then. Then, everything was perfect. Nothing mattered because I had you and you had me and we sang You Are My Sunshine and made things like silly drawings and it was all okay. Everything was okay. Every day I came to school excited about the stupid ideas we’d come up with that day. What happened to that? Why’d that change? 

Day 2

You know, even though I always knew that you would never be able to love me as much as I loved you, I still loved you more and more each day. I gave you everything in me that I possibly could because I guess I was stupid enough to believe that even though the feelings weren’t mutual, I could at least keep you around as my friend. I guess I was wrong. I guess giving all of me wasn’t even enough for you as a friend. I’m sorry. I wish I had more to give, but you’ve taken all of it and wasted it and thrown it away the same way you throw away your garbage, with not even a second glance, with not even a second thought. You know, for a while I was okay. For a while I managed to pull feelings from the deepest part of me and even give those to you, but really, I have nothing left. I’m scraped clean, left empty, basically destroyed, and shattered, broken, and so very empty with nothing, nothing left. Sometimes I still find myself searching for something more. Digging and looking and wishing and searching for something, anything, to give, but I come back empty handed every time. 

Day 3

Did you know that after a while of trying your hardest, of doing everything you possible could think of to keep someone in your life and failing in the end anyways, really fucking hurts? Because it does. At first you just deny it because fuck no. How, after everything, how could he just leave? And then you realize that it’s because he just doesn’t care enough, that you’ll never be good enough, that even though you laid everything on the table, you’ll never fucking be good enough. So then it’s like, okay, I understand now, and you walk around like nothing even happened because you can’t just accept it. Not like that. Not right off like that. So you pretend that it’s not completely over, like you’re still a whole person, like you have everything figured out and it’s all going to be okay. And then, when you least expect it to, it comes out of nowhere and suddenly you’re hit with the truth of realizations you’ve had and you’re scared. You’re so fucking terrified and you look for places to hide and to shield yourself from it all, but suddenly you’re too big for everything. The old hiding places you used to have are too small and you have nowhere to go, so you just kind of stand there getting hit with everything flying around like people have target practice and you’re the only target there. You just keep getting hit over and over again until finally everything just stops. You shrink back down to normal size and there’s nothing flying around and nothing hitting you and everything is quiet. It’s all quiet. Nobody around is talking even though you’re answering their questions and laughing at what they’re saying, nobody is talking. You walk with no purpose because you’ve realized that you have no purpose left. You’re just another skeleton covered with skin and blood that feels so heavy and a heartbeat that is only barely keeping you alive. But what is alive? Being able to breathe? If so, then I must be dead because ever since, I haven’t been able to breathe. 

Day 4

It’s like my heart has been drained of everything it once held, and has been replaced with a different kind of liquid that’s so cold it leaves you with a heavy feeling in your heart. My lungs feel like they turned to lead and my throat feels smaller than it did when I had strep throat and my nose can’t breathe in the air around me because it’s too thick with rejection and disappointment and heartache and unsaid apologies and thoughts and despair and hope and sadness. Then when you go to bed and lay down all of this thick air becomes even thicker and you don’t know what to do because you can’t breathe but you’re still alive and so you just cry because it’s the only thing left to do. And suddenly you’re breathing again, you’re breathing and gasping for breath that you’ve missed for so long and you’re breathing deeper and faster fasterfasterfaster and then it’s over. Your face is wet, but drying making it feel like it’s being pulled in all directions, your pillow is stained with all the tears that you never would’ve thought were even remotely, physically possible and it’s being soaked through the pillowcase into the pillow itself being held there for the next night to add the collection. At some point you drift off into a restless sleep dreaming about seeing him somewhere, about to talk to him, but him just looking right through you like there’s nothing there at all. Then I wake up and the same thing happens at school, so I think I’m dreaming but the pain and hurt tells me otherwise, tells me that you really do look right through me like there’s nothing there, like I’m really nothing at all.

Day 18

I started believing you. I started to believe like I was nothing because to me, you were everything and I gave you all of me but to you I wasn’t anything and I believed you because if you were everything then there wasn’t anything else to believe. Even after all of this, the worst part of it all, is if you asked me to come back, I would come crawling on my bruised and bloody knees. I would still come back. I’d come back. I’d come back and I would stay and I would go through all of it again just because it’s you and I hate myself for it. I hate myself for it because I don’t know how to make it stop. I don’t know how to let you go, to stop loving you and if there was a switch I would turn it off but there isn’t one so I can’t and I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know, but if there was a way to forget all of it, I would. Even the parts I don’t want to forget because even those make me feel like I’m drowning. Like I’m drowning in something other than water and its alive and pulling me with hands that are too strong and I can’t escape. I can’t escape and there’s no way out, so I just accept it for what it is and hope that one day I’ll be able to look back and instead of feeling numb, I’ll feel happy that at least, even if it was only for a little while, we had something. We had a friendship that gave everyone else’s a run for their money. Now we have nothing and I’m nothing and you’re nothing but you’re everything at the same time. I feel like writing this is pointless because it’s just some kind of permanent thing that holds everything I wish I could say to you, but probably never will, I’m probably just going to delete it, but I can’t stop writing and my wrists hurt but I can’t stop because it’s the first thing I’ve felt in a long time. I want to say goodbye to you and move on and never look back. I want to believe that you’re not good for me in any way. I want to believe that I’m better off without you. I’m going to try to do all of this and one day I will succeed. It’s going to be hard, but I know I will. It’s going to be so fucking hard because even on my best days you’re still there pulling me back, holding me back and I know there’s no point in trying to pretend you aren’t there because you’re like the sun and even when you can’t see it, it never goes away. 

Day 47

I avoid even looking at you because I’m afraid if I do, I’ll see nothing in return and something about that scares me. Something about not having any meaning to you scares me and I don’t know why, but it does. I think one day I’ll look back and realize that you were nothing more than the first person I loved. Everybody has that one person and you’re mine. I feel like I have more to say, but I can’t think of anything right now, so I guess I’m done.

Day 99

It’s been a while now and I don’t love you anymore. Sometimes I still miss you, but I don’t think I love you. When I see you in the hallway, I wonder what’s going through your head because sometimes you look so far away. Not always, but sometimes. When I used to look in your eyes I thought I could see the world. Now, when I catch your eyes, I don’t. I see a wall blocking out something and I don’t know what it is, but makes me sad for you because you used to be so much. I wonder if you still cry yourself to sleep at night, and I wonder if you do, what it’s about, or if you even know what it’s about. You used to tell me you would sit on your bed in the middle of the night and cry. It was never the ugly sobbing kind of crying, but the silent crying with the never ending tears. I think that kind is the worst because you don’t really feel anything, but you’re crying so you think you’re sad, but you can’t tell because you just feel empty. I wonder if you’re truly happy when you smile, and when you laugh, because I don’t know anymore. When I see you smile or laugh at other people when I walk passed you, your smile never reaches your eyes like it used to, and your laugh never sounds as big, as happy, as beautiful. I wonder why you let people walk over you and I wonder why you let the old you go. The old you had a sparkle in his eyes, and confidence and strength in his voice. You seemed to have lost that sparkle. You sound scared or maybe a little broken when you talk. I wonder if you still remember how it felt to be true to yourself. I always hear of these things that you have done. None of them remind me of the person you used to be, always exuding positivity and happiness. They remind me of a person who doesn’t know who he is, someone who’s lost himself. 

 

Day 138

Do you remember what it was like to be able to walk through the hallways with your head held high with power and strength, rather than with fear of someone seeing you falling? I know you are, and I know nobody else can see it. I know now that you aren’t good for me. You were toxic in my life. Even when you weren’t really there, you were still toxic to me. I used to think that you could do no wrong, but you can, and you do. You take from people, but you don’t give. You tell yourself you do, and you make other people believe you do, you made me believe, but you don’t. You take and take and take and when you’ve had enough, you throw it away and move on to someone new. I hope that one day someone gives to you exactly what you give to them: Nothing.

Day 228

I told you I was sorry today. You told me that I broke your heart.  
You told me you loved me. I told you that you didn’t have to.  
You said thank you.  
I didn’t say anything.

Day 230

I saw a shooting star tonight when I looked at the sky. It was so beautiful. The stars looked so bright, like they were lit from the inside. There were so many of them. I felt so small when I looked at them because the stars reminded me that there is an entire world out there that is so much bigger than I am. When you see a shooting star you’re supposed to make some kind of big wish. It’s funny then that I wished for you. 

Day 231

It’s been 231 fucking days and I hate you. I hate that you’re still all I think about when I probably cross your mind as a whisper. I hate that I still want you in my life because when I remember how much you made me smile, it makes me forget how much you hurt me. Sometimes it makes me forget why I had to leave in the first place. It makes me forget that you were anything other than amazing. It makes me forget about the pain that you gave me day in and day out, makes me forget about all the nights I stayed awake wondering why you were pushing me out of your life, wondering what was wrong with me, wondering what I did to you that made you distance yourself from me. I remember the last time I had a real conversation with you about this. You said you were sorry, but you didn’t know what you were apologizing for and that made me sick because it felt like you didn’t care, like you were just speaking words that you thought were the ones I wanted to hear. They were what I wanted to hear, but it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t good enough because you can’t apologize for something and not mean it and expect to be forgiven. I told myself over and over again that I’ve forgiven you. Sometimes it feels like I really did. Sometimes I can look back on what we had and actually smile. Other times though, I look back at what we had and where we are now and feel so sick I have to close my eyes and think of the ocean because it’s the only thing in the entire world that’s more beautiful than you. 

Day 232

Maybe the pedestal I put you on was too high. My expectations of you were too high. I received a more sincere apology from another person who I never expected it from, then I did from you. You denied it. You made empty apologies. This person? She didn’t. I could feel her sincerity in her apology and I think that’s why we can be okay, but you and I? I don’t think we’ll ever be okay because I made a more sincere apology to you that you didn’t deserve then you gave to me.

Day 242

I think that you are supposed to be the wrong one in this situation. I’m not completely convinced, but I’m working on it. I was told that you don’t have to actually have to be in an actual “relationship” for a relationship to be abusive. I was told that that was what I was in with you. I am having a hard time coming to terms with it because I don’t think I really believe it. I don’t know. I think that maybe I should talk to someone about you. I don’t know what to do at this point, I don’t think I’m supposed to feel like this 242 days later. I don’t think I’m supposed to be counting all the days that go by and I’m not really sure what exactly I’m counting from. I guess from the day I tried to get away, but I’m not sure anymore. All I know is that it’s from December 19th, 2014. I think that might have been the day I finished writing for you. I don’t remember. That’s another weird thing, all my memories feel like they’re disappearing or just all blending together. I don’t remember dates anymore and I don’t remember much other than the big things that happened. I don’t know why, it’s never happened before. I feel really tired all the time like my bones are too heavy in my body and they’re weighing me down or something. Maybe it’s just the weight of you, holding me down, I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.

I DONT KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS

I don’t want this anymore. I just want to die. It would make everything easier. please. I cant do this.

Day 272

I had a dream about you. We were smiling and laughing and you were wearing a green shirt. Your hair was blowing in the wind and it seemed like we were spinning because everything was blurry except for you. That’s how my reality used to be, everything blurry expect for when I saw you. Now, when I see you in reality, you’re the only thing that is blurry and I don’t know what that means, but I think maybe it’s a good thing. I just want to tell you how much you used to mean to me in words that maybe will actually make sense this time. So, here I go I guess. 

When I fell for you, it was the easiest thing that I’ve ever done. It was so simple to just let go of everything and submerge myself underneath all the layers of you. I trusted you. I believed that you meant everything you said and that you knew how to do everything I didn’t. I loved you. I completely, absolutely loved you with every single part of my heart and the scariest part of it all was that I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t afraid to love you. You made it so easy. You heard everything I said, you said that I was important to you, and you said that I was special to you. I believed you, because I trusted you. I blindly trusted you. If I was blindfolded walking on a tightrope 300 feet above the ground and you told me to jump because I’d be okay, I would have. You had a heart that was painted gold and I thought it shined that way from the inside out, but that’s when everything started to shatter. I saw a gold paint chip one day and I saw that your heart was peeling back its mask. Underneath the gold, it was the same as everyone else’s. I thought maybe I was seeing things wrong because you were such a good person, you were special, you were important, I loved you, and how could it not be golden? Where did the light go that I saw coming from your eyes? Wait, was it ever actually there? I don’t remember. I don’t remember what it looked like. I think I used to be warm around you, but I’m not sure anymore because right now I’m cold and I’m standing right next to you. These were the things I started questioning and realizing. I didn’t know anymore. I didn’t know where the person I fell in love with went, but suddenly, he wasn’t there. I kept loving this other person though. It was a toxic kind of love, but damn if I walked away from it. So I didn’t. I ended up bruised and tattered and torn and hurt and I still loved you. I still fucking loved you and I couldn’t stop and I tried and tried and tried, but there was nothing stronger than the love I had for you. Nothing, except for me. You had one string pulled taught that was attached to me, while I had thousands and thousands of strings tied to you, but I was the one with the scissors, I was the one who had to cut off the connections, so one by one, I began saying good bye to you. For so long I thought you were my anchor holding me in place, but I realized you were just a weight pulling me down, and I had to let you go. I had to, I’m sorry, but I had to because I was drowning and you didn’t care, so I had to do something so I could swim back up to the surface. Someday, maybe, I think I’ll get there. I’m getting closer. 

Day 284

Today it’s raining outside. On my way to class, I breathed in the scent of raindrops and fall. It was calming. I felt at peace. I thought about all the times I sat in my windowsill when it was raining and how I watched as the raindrops came down on the window. I thought about the races for the raindrops I used to create when it was raining and I was in the car. I thought about how running made me feel free, made me feel the same way the rain does. Calm. Peaceful. Free. I could smell the cross country trails I ran on. The hills that I ran up and the puddles that I walked through. I saw the team I was with that made me feel the happiest I’ve ever been. I saw the creek we used to run through. I saw the place that came to be known as the jungle. I saw all of us running and laughing and smiling and living. Living. That’s what it was. It was filled with life. Life and energy and lightening and fire and tranquility and calmness and peacefulness and freedom. It was all of that and that’s what I felt today, that’s what I saw today and I didn’t realize it, but while I was thinking of everything that once was, I never thought of you.  
It’s annoying really. Stupid. A waste of time. Writing this is so pointless and yet, the words continue to come. I’m so sick and tired of it, but I can’t stop. A part of me thinks this is what it’s like to have an addiction. To have to constantly come back to it and if you go without it for too long, you feel like you’re losing touch with something, but you can’t quite put a finger on what it is. Then when you feed your addiction again, you feel better. You feel better, but when the feeling goes away again you’re so tired and drained and so you do it again because you don’t want to feel like this. Sometimes you manage to free yourself. You go so long that it feels like you no longer need it and you realize that it didn’t do anything for you. That it was holding you back because you couldn’t think straight with it. But then you slip up. You have a bad day. You relapse and it’s too late. Slowly but surely you pick it up again and fall right back into the skin you just recently shed. Another part of me though, thinks this is the only way I can hold on to you, so I keep writing because I don’t know how to let go. I don’t know how to move on, I don’t know how to forgive. I’m lost in a city with streets upon streets and there’s only one that leads to the main road, the only one that leads out of the city and every time I think I’ve found the way out, I turn the corner only to come to a dead end. This is my last piece of you and I can’t let go. I want to, but I can’t. Not yet.  
Day 301

I forgive you.

Day 323

Everything feels lighter. I feel like I can fly. Like the weight that was holding me under water is finally gone and I’ve broken the surface. The sun is shining on my face and I am finally warm. My heart has begun picking up again, beating with more life. I haven’t felt so empty either. I feel like something has come back to me again and I’m not sure what it is, but I know it’s there. I started running again. The wind blew through my hair and it carried me faster and faster. I could feel each breath I took enter my body and into my lungs, and back again. It came freely and it came fast and I’m wondering just how long this feeling will stay.

Day 348

I met a boy today. He’s in my running group. I’m not sure how he can run, he’s got long gangling legs that go on for miles, and these turned in feet. He’s a bit clumsy and trips over himself a lot, but he can keep up with us just fine. He can keep up with me. He can even hold a conversation when he talks. Granted he speaks so slowly I imagine it must not be too difficult to gain his breath back after using it. His voice is lovely. It reminds me of water and of fall and of velvet. It’s deep and smooth and rough all at the same time. He has long hair too. He usually puts it up in a bun when we go on runs, but sometimes he leaves it down and it just flows with the wind. I like it. 

Day 358

Harry. That’s his name. Harry Styles. He asked me why I stopped running and for a second I panicked because I didn’t want to tell him it was because it reminded me of you, but then I looked at him and he was already looking at me and it was like he knew because he smiled a soft smile and then asked me what my favorite color was. He asked me if I wanted to go to the cafe with him sometime and I told him that sounded really nice.

Day 364

I think I like him a lot.

Day 365

It’s been one year. A lot has changed. At least it feels like it has anyhow.


End file.
